Minority caucus absent at Paul Afoko’s suspension meeting

It has emerged that the leadership of the Minority caucus of the NPP was absent at the historic meeting to suspend the National Chairman Paul Afoko.

Although the Minority Leader and another representative of parliament are members of the National Executive Committee, none of them showed up Last Friday at the party headquarters in Asylum Down for the meeting which suspended Afoko.

At the meeting, the First National Vice Chairman was appointed ag. National Chairman and the elected chairman was suspended indefinitely –the first ever suspension in the party’s 23-year history.

Deputy Minority leader Dominic Ntiwul who is the accredited representative of Parliament revealed that he failed to get the required quorum needed to take a decision on the NEC’s meeting.

He said there was no position to push if he attended the meeting so he did not show up at the meeting.

He told Accra-based Asempa FM, only 10 MPs attended a caucus meeting he called to seek their views. As a representative, he says it was important that he attended the meeting not just with his own views but armed with the general consensus he reaches with the caucus.

Among the MPs who attended are Henry Quartey, Ursula Owusu, Titus Glover, K.T Hammond and others. There are 125 NPP MPs in Parliament.

Discouraged by the numbers, the Deputy Minority Leader says, he didn’t have a mandated position to report at NEC.

Nonetheless, he stated that at a previous meeting, the Minority caucus took a decision to ask that Paul Afoko and General Secretary Kwabena Agyepong step aside.

He believes nothing has changed significantly in that decision taken last May by Minority MPs hence he has publicly backed the decision taken by NEC.

The Minority Leader Osei Kyei Mensah-Bonsu is out of the country, he revealed. The NPP leader in Parliament is in Switzerland on party business.

But the absence of the two NEC members representing the Minority Caucus has not stopped some MPs from hailing the decision to suspend Paul Afoko.

Myjoyonline.com reproduces the statement by the Minority last May.

Below is the full letter from the NPP MPs:OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS OF THE NPP MINORITY GROUP IN PARLIAMENT

The Members of the Minority New Patriotic Party (NPP)in Parliament met in Parliament after adjournment on Tuesday, May, 26, 2015 and deliberated on developments in the Party. The meeting made the following observations and arrived at the conclusions herein stated and forward same to the National Chairman of the Party as well as other members of the Steering Committee for the necessary action:

That for some time now, especially since the second half of 2014 till date, the party at the constituency, regional and national levels have experienced considerable tumultuous developments bordering on anarchy;

That both the Steering and National Executive Committee have not been holding regular meetings because the persons with the requisite statutory mandate to summon and conduct such meetings have not been discharging their responsibilities suffiently;

That there appear to be a leadership vacuum and communication gat at centre of the party;

That there appears to be a great degree of mistrust within the leadership ensuing from declared positions taken by the two top most elected officers of the party;

That the handling of the Parliamentary Primaries by the national officers have been most abysmal as it has led to suspicions by the aspirants, notably some Members of Parliament, since the General Secretary has declared that he has personal interest in some constituencies where the Party has incumbent Members of Parliament and therefore has demonstrated that he is neither neutral nor impartial in the conduct of the Parliamentary Primaries which objectivity, neutrality and impartiality a General Secretary is supposed to exhibit;

That the dastardly and heinous criminality perpetrated against the Chairman of the Party for the Upper East Region, Mr Adam Mahama, which has resulted in the tragic death of the said person and the arrest of Mr Gregory Afoko the brother of the National Chairman, Mr Paul Afoko, has further poisoned the atmosphere against the two key officers of the party, Mr Paul A. Afoko (National Chairman) and Kwabena Agyei Agyepong (the General Secretary) to the extent that it has become difficult for the two to discharge their statutory responsibilities effectively at the national head office of the party;

That many otherwise well-placed persons in the party have assumed rather Philippic postures of always attacking persons in the party including, in particular, former President Kufour and Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. President Kufour is a principal personality in the resolution of conflicts in the party and any attack on him weakens both his hand and resolve in that enterprise. Nana Akufo-Addo is the flagbearer who must be properly advertised to attract the neutrals and the non-committed and the attack on him after his decisive victory only tend to scare away potential sympathizers.

That in the circumstance, the two national officers be requested, in the interest of peace, unity, trust and stability in the party, to step aside to allow for an impartial investigation into these matters especially the gruesome murder of Mr Adams Mahama, the Upper East Regional Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP).